Prosecutors on Monday charged the man accused of shooting Denver police Officer Celena Hollis with the type of first-degree murder count that experts say is the easiest to prove.

Rollin Oliver, 21, heads back to court Thursday to be advised of the charge filed against him: a single count of first-degree murder with extreme indifference for human life.

As with all adult first-degree murder charges, Oliver faces mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole, if convicted. The maximum penalty is death.

Denver defense attorney Peter Hedeen said the extreme-indifference charge — one of three types of murder — is easier to prove in court because prosecutors won’t have to show Oliver intended to kill Hollis.

It’s charged when authorities believe a defendant acted in an obviously dangerous way and killed someone.

“Literally, that’s shooting into a crowd. That’s classically why this (statute) exists,” Hedeen said. “It’s also a lot easier to prove. You don’t have to prove premeditation.”

The other types of first-degree murder are murder with premeditation, when a killing is planned; and felony murder, when a victim dies in the course of a person’s committing certain types of violent felonies.

Denver Police Chief Robert White said immediately after Hollis’ death that investigators did not believe Oliver targeted the slain officer, who was shot while rushing to break up a fight June 24 during a City Park Jazz concert.

Oliver allegedly fired multiple rounds into a crowd of concert-goers during that confrontation, striking Hollis in the head, according to a statement issued by the Denver district attorney’s office. Hollis died at the scene.

Witnesses said they heard between three and five shots fired that evening.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Tim Twining, head of the office’s gang unit, is one of two prosecutors handling the case. He successfully prosecuted Willie Clark in the 2007 shooting death of Denver Bronco Darrent Williams.

So far, authorities have been reluctant to discuss the nature of possible gang involvement in Hollis’ death. White said gang tensions led to the fight in the park, but he has not pinned the shooting to any particular prior incidents or gang sects.

Authorities acknowledged Oliver may be a member of the Park Hill Bloods that roam his northeast Denver neighborhood after it came to light that the 21-year-old claimed the affiliation when checking in to the Denver County Jail.

He remains in custody awaiting his next court hearing. His public defender declined to comment.

Any first-degree murder charge is eligible for the death penalty, although though Denver hasn’t sent anyone to death row in nearly three decades, according to the University of Colorado Law Review.

And though the murder of a peace officer can be used as an aggravating factor should prosecutors seek the death penalty, the admission that Oliver likely didn’t intend to shoot Hollis won’t help make the case for capital punishment, said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman.

“If the murder was not deliberate, then I think it is unlikely that capital punishment would be pursued,” Silverman. “It’s very difficult to get a Denver death penalty. It’s a liberal jurisdiction.”

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.